1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a conductive paste for an external electrode and a multilayer ceramic electronic component including the same, capable of improving equivalent series resistance (ESR) characteristics in the multilayer ceramic electronic component.
2. Description of the Related Art
In accordance with the recent trend for the miniaturization of electronic products, multilayer ceramic electronic components have also been required to have smaller sizes and larger capacitances.
For this reason, attempts at thinning and increasing dielectric layers and internal electrodes stacked on one another have been performed using various methods. Recently, multilayer ceramic electronic components having dielectric layers having a reduced thickness and an increased number of laminations have been manufactured.
Along with this, as an external electrode is also required to be thinner, plating liquid may penetrate into a chip through the thinned external electrode, and thus there are technical difficulties in the miniaturization of electronic products.
Particularly, when the external electrode has an irregular shape, the possibility that the plating liquid may penetrate through a thin portion of the external electrode, resulting in a failure to secure reliability.
In addition, in terms of securing reliability, cracks and the like may occur due to external impacts. The occurrence of cracks may also result from the fact that the external electrode may not sufficiently absorb stress, or stress may occur by a plating layer.
In order to solve the defects, a resin composition containing a conductive material is coated between a metal layer of the external electrode and a plating layer, so that external impacts may be absorbed and reliability may be improved.
However, in the case of coating the resin composition, an increase in equivalent series resistance (ESR) may be caused as compared with the case of a general copper (Cu) sintered external electrode.
Therefore, research into multilayer ceramic electronic components having excellent equivalent series resistance (ESR) as well as high degrees of reliability implemented therein is still required.